"Superman: The Movie" has, by far, the worst plot ever put on film. No movie ever made has a plot that depends so much on stupidity as the plot of Superman. Not even movies about stupidity (e.g., Dumber And Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd) can top it in that category.
But let's take a look at the plot: Lex Luthor buys cheap mid-western real state with the intention of sending a nuclear missile to San Andreas fault, thus sinking the whole west coast, which would cause his cheap real state to become the new west coast, thus making him rich. Never mind the fact that the plan is neither physically possible nor economically viable, those are the least of this movie's problems. The problems start when, luckily for Luthor, the US Army, who are depicted as the most incompetent group of buffoons in the history of cinema, decide to launch 2 nuclear missiles within US territory, with enough fuel to reach both coasts and no failsafes whatsoever. They literally just plan to hurl the missiles up into the air and hope for the best because if anything goes wrong, they're screwed. The missiles are going to be transported from the base where they are stored to the launching base (where no one will ever check if anything went wrong) by a group of soldiers so dumb and horny they'll leave their post in unison at the sight of a scantily-clad woman lying in the pavement ahead of them.
It's bad enough that the only real difference between Luthor's plan to hijack the missiles and a Coyote's plan to capture the Road Runner is the number of empty Acme boxes lying around afterwards. It's bad enough that the plan actually works, thanks to the spectacular incompetence of the US Army. It's bad enough that Otis (Luthor's henchman) demonstrates that he is the stupidest living being ever put on film by screwing up a task a 6-year-old child would've done correctly. But what makes this sequence completely unbearable is the fact that Otis' screw up is going to play such an important part in the plot later on. Quite literally, Otis' braindead screw up is the one and only reason Superman manages to defeat Luthor.
Then Luthor realizes that Superman could still foil his plans so he decides to get rid of him, and using reasoning that Uwe Boll would've been ashamed to put on film, he "deduces", out of the blue, the existence and effects of Kryptonite. Then he lures Superman into his lair (in the sewers) so he can kill him. At this point, Superman is completely clueless regarding the missiles and Luthor's plan. If Luthor has kept his mouth shut, he would've won. But just to prove that this movie is nothing but a bad James Bond movie written by Ed Wood, and that Luthor is nothing more than a poor man's Goldfinger, he tells Superman everything about his plan, including how to stop it if he desires to do so. Then he puts the Kryptonite necklace on Superman, pushes him into a pool, and continues his James Bond-villain impersonation by conveniently walking away for no readily apparent reason, hoping that Superman is nice enough to die unsupervised and stupid enough not no realize that all he has to do is to bend over and let the necklace slip from his neck. All Luthor had to do was to wait two minutes for Superman to drown. If he was in a hurry, he could've helped him. But no, he walks away.
So Superman is in the pool, a Kryptonite necklace slowly draining away his powers and even his very life. This is the first time in the whole movie that Superman cannot simply muscle his way out of a problem. So what does he do? Does he demonstrate that being a hero is about the heart, not the muscles? Does he demonstrate that a hero might be down, but he's never out? Does he demonstrate that a true hero will always find a way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat no matter what the odds are? No, that would be SuperGIRL. What Superman demonstrates is that he's absolutely worthless without his muscles. So how does he get out of there? Well, it turns out that Otis' screw up in programming the missile has conveniently sent it to the town where the grandparents of Luthor's henchwoman live. And she saves Superman so he can save her grandparents, in what is effectively the worst "plot twist" in the history of cinema.
And when you thought things couldn't get any stupider, they do. Superman stops the first missile, but not the second one, which strikes San Andreas fault and causes a huge earthquake. Several really crappy FX scenes later (including one where Superman lifts a whole mountain range which, incredibly enough, stops the earthquake instead of causing a bigger one) Lois Lane dies. So (and prepare your brain cells for this one) Superman flies around the Earth, reversing Earth's rotation, and thus reversing time, magically undoing all the stuff that had just happened. He literally just hits the "undo" button and makes all the bad things go away.
If a lesser superhero, let alone a female one, had tried to get away with this kind of garbage it would've instantly won a Razzie for worst screenplay of the century.
But let's take a look at the plot: Lex Luthor buys cheap mid-western real state with the intention of sending a nuclear missile to San Andreas fault, thus sinking the whole west coast, which would cause his cheap real state to become the new west coast, thus making him rich. Never mind the fact that the plan is neither physically possible nor economically viable, those are the least of this movie's problems. The problems start when, luckily for Luthor, the US Army, who are depicted as the most incompetent group of buffoons in the history of cinema, decide to launch 2 nuclear missiles within US territory, with enough fuel to reach both coasts and no failsafes whatsoever. They literally just plan to hurl the missiles up into the air and hope for the best because if anything goes wrong, they're screwed. The missiles are going to be transported from the base where they are stored to the launching base (where no one will ever check if anything went wrong) by a group of soldiers so dumb and horny they'll leave their post in unison at the sight of a scantily-clad woman lying in the pavement ahead of them.
It's bad enough that the only real difference between Luthor's plan to hijack the missiles and a Coyote's plan to capture the Road Runner is the number of empty Acme boxes lying around afterwards. It's bad enough that the plan actually works, thanks to the spectacular incompetence of the US Army. It's bad enough that Otis (Luthor's henchman) demonstrates that he is the stupidest living being ever put on film by screwing up a task a 6-year-old child would've done correctly. But what makes this sequence completely unbearable is the fact that Otis' screw up is going to play such an important part in the plot later on. Quite literally, Otis' braindead screw up is the one and only reason Superman manages to defeat Luthor.
Then Luthor realizes that Superman could still foil his plans so he decides to get rid of him, and using reasoning that Uwe Boll would've been ashamed to put on film, he "deduces", out of the blue, the existence and effects of Kryptonite. Then he lures Superman into his lair (in the sewers) so he can kill him. At this point, Superman is completely clueless regarding the missiles and Luthor's plan. If Luthor has kept his mouth shut, he would've won. But just to prove that this movie is nothing but a bad James Bond movie written by Ed Wood, and that Luthor is nothing more than a poor man's Goldfinger, he tells Superman everything about his plan, including how to stop it if he desires to do so. Then he puts the Kryptonite necklace on Superman, pushes him into a pool, and continues his James Bond-villain impersonation by conveniently walking away for no readily apparent reason, hoping that Superman is nice enough to die unsupervised and stupid enough not no realize that all he has to do is to bend over and let the necklace slip from his neck. All Luthor had to do was to wait two minutes for Superman to drown. If he was in a hurry, he could've helped him. But no, he walks away.
So Superman is in the pool, a Kryptonite necklace slowly draining away his powers and even his very life. This is the first time in the whole movie that Superman cannot simply muscle his way out of a problem. So what does he do? Does he demonstrate that being a hero is about the heart, not the muscles? Does he demonstrate that a hero might be down, but he's never out? Does he demonstrate that a true hero will always find a way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat no matter what the odds are? No, that would be SuperGIRL. What Superman demonstrates is that he's absolutely worthless without his muscles. So how does he get out of there? Well, it turns out that Otis' screw up in programming the missile has conveniently sent it to the town where the grandparents of Luthor's henchwoman live. And she saves Superman so he can save her grandparents, in what is effectively the worst "plot twist" in the history of cinema.
And when you thought things couldn't get any stupider, they do. Superman stops the first missile, but not the second one, which strikes San Andreas fault and causes a huge earthquake. Several really crappy FX scenes later (including one where Superman lifts a whole mountain range which, incredibly enough, stops the earthquake instead of causing a bigger one) Lois Lane dies. So (and prepare your brain cells for this one) Superman flies around the Earth, reversing Earth's rotation, and thus reversing time, magically undoing all the stuff that had just happened. He literally just hits the "undo" button and makes all the bad things go away.
If a lesser superhero, let alone a female one, had tried to get away with this kind of garbage it would've instantly won a Razzie for worst screenplay of the century.